


The Cup that Runneth Over

by okapi



Series: The Cup 'verse (Vampire Femlock) [1]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Bath Sex, Consensual Sex, Episode: s01e01 A Study in Pink, F/F, Fem!John - Freeform, Femlock, Imprisonment, Kidnapped John, Non-Consensual Blood Drinking, Non-Consensual Touching, Vampire Sherlock, Vampires, Wall Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-04-28 00:01:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5070031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okapi/pseuds/okapi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Unlucky is, by far, the kindest word for cursed.  </p><p>A Femlock vampire story. Inspired by Le Fanu's <i>Carmilla</i> and Stoker's <i>Dracula</i>. With lovely <a href="http://sweetlittlekitty.tumblr.com/post/132171469043/no-thats-not-wine-vampire-femlock-commission">art</a> by <a href="http://sweetlittlekitty.tumblr.com/">sweetlittlekitty</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ambient Mix for this Story: [The Cup that Runneth Over](http://halloween.ambient-mixer.com/the-cup-that-runneth-over)

I am the unluckiest woman in the world.

Not because of Afghanistan. Volunteer for a land war in Asia and you might get shot. No surprise there. And the scars that the war carved on my body and mind? Also not particularly surprising. I’ve got a tremor in my left hand and a limp in my right leg that have no explanation. And nightmares that need no explanation.

But the car? The car I never saw coming.

I’m told it lurched around the corner just as I stepped off of the pavement, hospital discharge papers in one hand, cane and bed-sit address in the other.

And I woke up right back where I started that day: in a white-walled room surrounded by beeping machines.

Unlucky, no?

And yet the doctors insisted on using the word ‘lucky’ when they described—in the esoteric mix of gore and textbook detail they reserve for talking to one of their own—all the measures taken to save my life. So I know about the cutting and the clamping and the suturing. About the transfusion. About ‘the nick of time.’ About ‘lucky.’

Which everyone knows is doctor-speak for ‘lucky to be alive.’

This time around I was sharing a room with another injured servicewoman. The beige curtain between our beds was always drawn, and often the only sound in the room was a symphony of wheezing and whirring machines. From the whispers of the doctors and nurses that passed by my bed on the way to hers, I got the sense that her scars, inside and out, rivalled mine.

A pair of unluckys.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. My story doesn’t start with a bullet. Or a speeding car. It doesn’t even start with Renfield. It starts—like all tales of this kind do—with a dream. And a knock at the door. And by the end of it, you will know what I know: that ‘unlucky’ is, by far, the kindest word for ‘cursed.’

* * *

**26 October**

Early in the morning, I woke from a dream. Unusual because it was in fact a dream and not a nightmare. Since my return from Afghanistan, there had been only one feature film in the cinema of my subconscious, and it was a war flick. Screams. Boots scrambling over rocks. Gunfire. Explosions. Most mornings I was jerked awake, panting, tangled in sweat-damp sheets.

This was definitely a dream. Of a woman. She was standing by my bed, bowing over like a cypress over a river, her dark, sweet-scented hair brushing my cheek. Her face and body were pale and gaunt, all angles and alabaster skin.

She stood still, so still she might have been mistaken for a statue, but for her eyes, which were grey like a summer storm and just charged. She stared at me with an intensity that may have surpassed that of the surgeon who had sewn me back together. Those grey eyes seemed to glide over me, devouring my flesh, then returning to pick my bones clean.

I wanted her. I wanted to reach my hand up and know the softness of her hair. I feared her. I wanted to curl into a ball and hide from her ravishing gaze, to shrink from her ethereal touch. Desire. Repulsion. In a dream, of course, it is possible to feel both of these things at once and find neither remarkable.

As her silhouette faded, a heart-breaking sadness struck me, followed by an overwhelming relief. In the end, all that remained was her mouth. Luscious lips. A perfect Cupid’s bow. Bright teeth.

The mouth spoke.

“You stole my lunch.”

* * *

**27 October**

I dreamt of the woman again. This time, there was only desire. I wanted to trail my tongue along her clavicle and know the taste and temperature of her skin. Would she be as cool, as sweet as my dream-mind supposed? I wanted to cover her mouth with my own. I recognised hunger in her eyes; my entire body flushed at once.

She began to fade again, and I cried out softly. I raised a trembling hand, trying to grasp her, keep her. I heard her voice.

“Don’t fret, little thief. We shall have our fill of each other yet.”

* * *

**28 October**

_Knock, knock_.

The sound was so soft as to be barely discernible over the noises of the machines in the room. I glanced at the clock on the wall. Three o’clock. The witching hour.

_Knock, knock_.

Who knocks twice in a hospital in the middle of the night?

“Come in,” I whispered. A loud moan echoed in the room. I was shocked when I realised that the sound had come not from the door, but from the other side of the curtain. It was the first noise I had ever heard my companion make. I raised the head of my bed to its highest position and stretched as far forward as the bed and my crumpled body allowed. To no avail, I could see nothing. I fell back against the pillows.

“Thank you. I have to knock. Hospital protocol. Plus, barging in is barbaric.”

I started. There was a person standing at the side of the bed.

“Apologies for frightening you. I did knock.”

I blinked. In the dim light, my eyes strained to make out the speaker’s form and features. When I did, I gasped.

“You’re the woman of my dreams!”

“I’m flattered,” she replied with a smirk.

It was her. Same tall lean figure, same elegant face. She wore a lab coat and dark-rimmed glasses. Her hair was swept up and twisted in a loosely coiled bun. She was beautiful. Instantly, I felt a touch of the dream’s intoxication.

She rolled the bedside table deftly to one side and set a plastic caddy on the far end of it. The caddy was bursting with capped vials, gauze, and other items that I recognised immediately.

Oh! Phlebotomist! Now the dreams made sense. What a fool I was! I laid my right arm flat on the bed and turned it over, offering her the inside of my elbow.

“You’ve drawn my blood before,” I said as she went about her preparations, scanning my identification bracelet, pressing a barcoded sticker to a vial, laying out her tools, one-by-one, on the near end of the table. She hummed and snapped on a pair of plastic gloves.

“I must’ve opened my eyes and seen you, even though I don’t remember it or even getting my blood drawn. Your face must’ve stuck in my subconscious. I’ve dreamt of you for the past two nights.”

She hummed. “Were they good dreams?” I could hear the amusement in her voice.

My eyes drifted to the beige curtain as I considered. “Yeah. Much better than I’m used to.”

“You have nightmares about the war. Afghanistan or Iraq?”

“Afghanistan. Yeah, how did you know?”

“Your haircut and that bag peeking out of the closet say military. Your face is tanned, but no tan above the wrists. You’ve been abroad, but not sunbathing, and it’s not uncommon for veterans to have nightmares.”

“Yeah, that’s actually very clever, and you must have eyes like a cat to see all that in the dark. Uh…”

When I looked back, she was peeling off her gloves. She slipped a vial of dark liquid in a plastic bag and affixed a sticker to the exterior.

“Wow! I didn’t feel a thing! Nothing at all! And that’s the quickest draw I’ve ever witnessed, as a patient or a doctor! They usually have to use that little light, you know the one that helps find the veins. And sometimes it takes three or four tries.”

“Amateurs,” she said smugly.

I laughed. I had not laughed since Afghanistan; the noise sounded odd, foreign to my ears.

She smiled. “So you’re a doctor as well as a soldier?”

“Was, once upon a time. Maybe I will be again. If I can get this ol’ carcass in working order. If I get a stroke or two of luck.”

The woman nodded, then looked away. Something caught her gaze, and my eyes followed hers. She was staring at the seat of the visitor’s armchair, where a mobile phone was perched atop a small stack of plastic DVD cases.

“Horror film buff?”

I sighed. “No, not really. My sister means well, but…”

“Sister!” the woman exclaimed. “There’s always something. Harry’s short for Harriet!”

“Wow! You can read that tiny inscription from here? Yeah, the phone is thoughtful. She wants me to stay in touch. The films, not so much, but that’s Harry for you.”

“Does the alcoholism cause her poor judgement? Or does her poor judgment lead to the alcoholism? Hard to say. Chicken. Egg. Either way, the split with her wife is probably distracting.”

My mouth fell open. “Do you know her? Harry Watson? Or Clara?”

The woman shook her head. “I don’t know, I see.” She reached for the mobile and showed me the side. “Power connection: tiny little scuff marks around the edge of it. Every night she goes to plug it in to charge but her hands are shaking. You never see those marks on a sober gal’s phone; never see a drunk’s without them.”

My jaw dropped. Then I closed it. “You’re right, by the way, about the drinking. How’d you know about the divorce?”

“She’s given you her old phone.” She turned the phone and pointed to the inscription. “Three kisses says it was a romantic attachment. The expense of the phone says wife, not girlfriend. Clara must have given it to her recently; this model’s only six months old. Marriage in trouble then; six months on, and your sister’s just given it away. If Clara had left her, she would have kept it. People do. Sentiment. But no, she wanted rid of it. She left Clara. And she gave the phone to you.”

I was speechless for a moment.

Fascinated. Awed. Enthralled.

Finally, I found my voice.

“That was amazing.”

Her eyes widened; then she frowned.

“Do you think so?”

Was she barking? “Of course it was,” I insisted. “It was extraordinary; it was quite extraordinary.”

“That’s not what people normally say.”

“What do people normally say?”

“Piss off, vampire! Or,” she waved her hands in the air frantically and shrieked, in perfect imitation of a damsel in distress.

I burst out laughing. She laughed, too.

“Not a very nice thing to call a phlebotomist,” I said between giggles.

She gave a dismissive wave of the hand. “Occupational hazard.”

There was a sharp groan.

I bit my bottom lip and glanced at the beige curtain. “Stop, stop. We can’t giggle. It’s a hospital! There are sick people. Everywhere.”

She snorted and then nodded toward the chair. “Do you enjoy those types of films, _Dracula_ , _The Mummy_ , _Frankenstein_?”

“They’re not bad. After all, it is end of October. Tis the season.”

She turned sideways, extended one arm, tilted her head back, and said in a Hollywood monster voice,

“Children of the night! What music they make!”

Then she turned back and looked at me with a shy smile that bloomed when I clapped softly and whispered, “Bravo!”

She bowed. “A little phlebotomist humour.”

“You’re very good. The stage lost a fine actor when you elected to be a professional blood-drawer.”

Our eyes locked. My heart beat loudly in my chest.

Beautiful. Charming. Whip-smart. Need I say I was smitten? She was extraordinary. No wonder my subconscious had transformed her into some kind of siren.

“Mistress! Is that you? Mistress!”

The voice was grating, coarse. The words dissolved into incoherent shrieks. I heard the rustling of bed linen and the tell-tale sound of things being ripped from their moorings. Cords. Tubes. Wires.

Alarms rang out sharp and loud.

I took a deep breath and schooled my voice into its most commanding battlefield tone. “Lieutenant! Calm yourself! That’s an order!” My words had no effect; the unseen chaos continued. I reached for my call light and pressed it hard.

The door opened. A nurse rushed in, letting in a bright strip of light from the corridor.

“Miss Renfield, Miss Renfield. Calm down, love. No, don’t do that. You’re hurting yourself.”

“Mistress is here! Oh, ha, ha, ha! You’re finally here! I’ve been waiting, Mistress. Your servant has been patient, so patient. Hee, hee, hee. A patient patient. Oh!”

A second nurse appeared in the doorway.

“I brought the Haldol.”

“Good. Help me here.”

I closed my eyes and listened. Soon the shrieks turned to whimpers. And then there was no more noise, save that of the nurses.

Then I remembered my friend. See? I was already thinking of her as my friend though we had only chatted a matter of minutes. That’s what dreams will do.

I opened my eyes.

She was no longer by the bed, but she had not left the room. She was standing against the far wall, caddy in hand; it was the only part of the room still in complete shadow. I could barely make out her silhouette so well did she blend into the darkness. When our eyes met, she put one solemn finger to her lips, but she needn’t have bothered. I wasn’t about to say a word.

“Now, Captain,” said the nurse in a sing-song voice. “How are we here?”

“We are fine,” I replied slowly. She turned off my call light.

“Are we in any pain?” she sang.

“No, thank you.” I much preferred to feel the pain than to numb myself into a torpor.

“Bedpan?”

“We are fine. Thank you very much,” I insisted.

She caught sight of the armchair and frowned. “We should be sleeping. And not watching films that give us bad dreams.”

“The war gave us bad dreams. Old Hollywood monsters cannot do worse.”

She huffed. “Would we like some tea?”

“No, thank you.”

When the doors had closed, the phlebotomist emerged and sang,

“Would we like some tea?”

I laughed. She really had a gift for mimicry.

“We would love some, but not the weak swill that this place deigns to call tea. I’d make it myself if I could haul myself to a proper kitchen.” I sighed. “Not only would I have a nice cuppa, but I’d have something to do. This place is so bloody boring!” I looked over at the curtain. “At least for someone in their right mind. Poor Renfield.”

“I have a proposition for you.”

My heart skipped a beat. “Let’s hear it.”

“I could sneak you out of here in the evening, and you could make and drink as much tea as you wanted at my flat. I play the violin. There are books. I could show you my experiments. We could even watch a film.” She gestured to the armchair. “Until dawn. Then I’d bring you back, safe and sound.”

I laughed. “Sounds like a dream. An impossible dream.”

“Impossible, no. Highly improbably, yes. Risky, yes.”

I shook my head. “I am monitored more closely than some prisoners. By humans,” I gestured to the door, “and by machines. The hospital is full of cameras. No way could I be missing for that long and no one and nothing notice.”

She nodded. “Other objections?”

“Okay, even if I escaped, I can hardly walk. Physically, I’d never make it.”

She nodded again. “And?”

“That’s not enough?!”

“If I could make it happen, would you want to come?”

Her face, her form, her voice. The invisible string that tugged me towards her. Dream, fantasy or nightmare, there was only one answer.

“Oh God, yes.”

She smiled. “Tonight it is then.” She moved toward the door.

“Hey!” I whispered. “I don’t even know your name. Or where we’re going.”

“The name is Sherlock Holmes. The address is 221B Baker Street.” She held up the plastic bag. “Thank you for the five millilitres of AB-.” Then she winked.

And was gone.

A breath caught in my throat. My heart fluttered.

And from the other side of the curtain, there came a low whine.


	2. Chapter 2

**28 October**

That evening by the time two sets of vital signs had been taken, three monitors checked, one bedpan brought and removed, and four offers of weak tea refused, I had convinced myself that the entire encounter from the morning was a dream.

Sherlock Holmes didn’t exist. She was just a fantasy.

_Knock, knock._

The knock hadn’t come from the door to the hallway. It had come from the other side of the room. From the door to the lavatory.

“Come in.”

“Thank you. I have to knock. And, after all, in uniform or out, barging in is barbaric.”

At those words, my heart leapt in my chest, and a rush of adrenaline-soaked blood roared in my ears.

“Mis—!“

Renfield’s screech broke off abruptly. From my vantage point, I could see a sliver of a profile. I heard a whisper.

“There, there, Lieutenant. Do not alarm yourself.”

There was a quiet sigh and then silence.

When she finally appeared, I failed miserably at containing my excitement.

“Ms. Holmes!” I cried.

“Sherlock, please. Are you ready?”

“You aren’t serious.”

“Of course I am.”

“If you can make it happen, then I’m ready.”

She spoke quickly. “First, the machines. Machines are just electricity and signals. They are made to be intercepted. They are engineered by humans, and anything engineered by humans can be fooled.” Her fingers flew over the monitors so fast my eyes couldn’t follow. “Watch,” she said as she unhooked me, cord by cord, wire by wire, until I was unleashed from my beeping guards. No alarms. No significant change in the readings or in me. I raised an eyebrow. She smiled. “The next is the human factor. Humans are essentially selfish and lazy. They are made to be distracted. They are fallible, which means they can be made to fail. There’s an emergency down the hall that will keep most of them occupied, and I’m afraid your assigned nurse is kipping in an empty room as we speak.”

“Wow.”

“Okay, now you.”

“I’m, well, I’m broken. Already fooled and failed, I’m afraid.”

“Nonsense.” Sherlock lowered the bed. “First I do have a confession: I had an illegal, unethical peek at your medical record.”

“I shall report you immediately,” I teased.

“The good news is that while your injuries are physical, your limitations are largely psychological. So I am going to take both your hands and I want you to concentrate very hard on standing.”

“Christ, you don’t ask much, do you?”

“Give it one try. I won’t let you fall. Close your eyes.”

I pulled at my legs until they dangled off one side of the bed and pushed my upper body until I was sitting upright. My feet brushed the floor.

I looked down and felt a stab of paralyzing fear. What was I doing? This was madness.

“Close your eyes.” A pair of invisible thumbs pressed down on my eyelids.

Were my hands in hers? If so, it was the most unusual hand-holding I had ever experienced until then. Surreal, in the purest sense of the word. Like a dream. Like my dream. There was a flow of energy between us that I did not have then—nor do I have now—adequate words to describe. Not only was there no pain, there was no fear, there was no sense of being less. Or lacking. Or broken.

I did not feel powerful.

I felt whole.

“Open your eyes, Captain Watson.”

What I saw was a miracle, the kind usually attributed to healing waters and dusty saints.

She was smiling. “See? Mind over matter.”

“Please call me John,” I said.

“Interesting.”

“Nickname. I’ll tell you the long, boring story over tea.”

She laughed. “I’ll hold you to that. The key is to keep at least one hand in mine at all times. Step.”

At this point, I would have followed any command. I felt no stiffness, no discomfort. We moved together as if dancing. Her leading, me following. As if we’d been doing it our whole lives. As if we’d been doing it across many lifetimes, reincarnated in novel forms and fashions every generation.

“As much as I enjoy looking at your arse, you need clothes,” she said. I blushed and nodded toward the closet. “You may feel dizzy when you sit.” We waltzed back to the bed.

“You should’ve been a physical therapist instead of a phl…” I fell over on my side, face pressed into the quilted pad that lay atop the mattress. I kept my face there, ashamed at the weakness that had suddenly crept into my bones, paralyzing me under its weight.

For the second time that evening, I thought, this is madness.

She dressed me like a child, and when she pulled me to the side of the bed, I protested like one.

“I can’t,” I whined.

She put her hands on either side of my head and stared into my eyes. “Concentrate, Captain.” It was an order. And I was ever the soldier.

“Okay.” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. And there it was again, my second wind, though it felt more like an electrical charge than a breeze.

I stood. She led me toward the lavatory door. “How are we going to get out of here?” I asked.

“Oh, you should know that, Doctor. Technicians in hospitals are like mice; we know all the secret passageways where the cameras aren’t looking. How else can we sneak out for a quick smoke and not get caught?”

“You shouldn’t be smoking, Sherlock.”

“Yes, Doctor. We’ll take this,” she reached back and picked up the cane that was leaning against the doorframe, “just in case.”

Hand-in-hand, we passed by the bed where Renfield lay, tucked on her side, face into the pillow.

“Wow,” I whispered, nodding toward the window. The blinds were open, and the moon shone brightly. “It’s a werewolf moon.”

“Werewolves! Ugh! Who likes them? Can a werewolf do this?” Sherlock stopped in front of the window. She schooled her face into the perfect imitation of Count Orlock and made a clawing gesture with her free hand.

“ _Nosferatu_! Oh you shouldn’t,” I said, stifling a giggle and looking back at Renfield nervously. “You’ll give that girl more nightmares than she already has.”

“She’s fine. Come on.”

We passed through the lavatory.

I have no idea how we exited the hospital. There were empty corridors and empty stairwells. And there were doors. So many doors! We did not see a soul along the way.

Once outside, I breathed in the city air. Not fresh, but not sterilized or sanitized. It was glorious.

As in the hospital, we seemed to be moving very quickly amidst the periphery of the world, through shadows, up alleyways, across rooftops, and down side streets. Always alone. Sherlock’s hand was ever in mine, which was essential as I was completely lost, swallowed by the city. What had once been so familiar, was now wholly foreign.

Finally, we entered a tiny garden and then a flat.

A voice called out.

“Sherlock!”

“Just me, Mr. Hudson. And a friend.” She whispered to me, “Landlord’s a bit of a troll.”

One more set of stairs, and then Sherlock held open the door. I entered. She let go of my hand and pushed the handle of the cane into it.

“I don’t think you’ll actually need it while you’re here, but it may be a comfort.”

The flat was handsome, charming even, in spite of the clutter and the dust. Apart from a laptop peeking out from beneath a pile of newspapers on the desk, it could have been an illustration from a Victorian edition of _The Strand_ : a pair of armchairs, a crackling fireplace, and, most of all, books and papers and newspapers and journals. Everywhere. They filled the bookcase to bursting; they were piled high to tipping on the floor; they covered the antique desk. I spied a collection of rolled papers in one corner. Architectural plans? Engineering designs? Parchments? Medieval palimpsests? I couldn’t readily tell. There were ink wells and blotting paper. An old globe. Old scientific and mathematical instruments.

Sherlock stood in the middle, hands behind her back. Clearly, she was waiting for me to say something.

“It’s a lovely…” Her face lit.

“…mess.” And then fell.

“Well, I could tidy up a bit,” she said hurriedly. She took up a throw pillow from one armchair and tossed it to the floor. Then she scooped up a bundle of correspondence and stabbed it with a pen knife to the mantelpiece, right beside a skull.

I pointed at the skull with my cane. “That’s, uh…”

“Friend of mine. And when I say ‘friend,’ I mean…”

“It’s painfully obvious you live alone, Sherlock.”

“Yes, well…” She turned away and then mumbled, “There’s an empty bedroom upstairs.”

I decided that I had made her squirm enough. I clasp my hands together and rubbed them. “I was promised a kitchen. You were promised tea.”

She waved towards the adjacent room. “At your disposal. I’ll, uh, play something.” She bent down and picked up a violin and bow that were peeking out from under a pyramid of books and inner workings of a dismantled clock.

I took two tentative steps, and upon realising that I did not need the cane, left it propped against the armchair.

The edges of the kitchen were at my disposal, but in the centre was a table covered with—in contrast to the museum relics that decorated the sitting room—very modern-looking scientific apparatus. And there were racks and racks of vials. Flasks and burners and pipettes. Bits and pieces of glass and mesh and wire.

“What’s all this?” I asked. “It’s Looks like a mad scientist’s laboratory. Don’t tell me. You’re Doctor Frankenstein by day, Dracula by night.”

Sherlock tilted her head. “Not a bad characterization. I am what I believe is called an armchair biochemist.”

The vials appeared to all contain a dark liquid. “Is that…?”

“Blood is my area of interest.”

I shrugged. “Makes sense, I guess. You experiment on yourself.”

“Yes, and subjects specifically for the purpose.”

“Ah, rats! Rats, rats, rats!”

Sherlock laughed. “Of a sort.”

“None here?” I asked, looking around for cages. There was no animal smell.

“Certainly not. You are my guest.”

I laughed. “Fair enough. Well, blood may be your area of interest, but tea is my area of interest.” I turned toward the cupboards. “I bet it’s here.” I opened a cupboard door and laughed. “Wow! You really like your tea.” The space was packed solid with boxes and bags and tins. At first glance, there were at least two dozen varieties.

“Please, make whatever you like,” she said.

“Well, let’s see. You’ll find I’m not very fancy. How about this one?” I held it out.

“Perfect. Mind if I play?”

“Sure.” The tin had never been opened. I removed the plastic seal. “How do you take yours?”

“Splash of milk, two sugars.”

In the next cupboard, I found the teapot and its accoutrement. I opened another cupboard door.

“Biscuits!” I exclaimed. It was as full as the tea cupboard. No one as emaciated as Sherlock could possibly have that great a sweet tooth.

“Sherlock?”

“Hmm?”

“Did you buy all these biscuits to impress me?”

“Yes. Is it working?”

I blushed. “Yes.”

With that, she ran the bow across the strings and proceeded to play. To my untrained ear, it was beautiful. Lilting. Soft.

* * *

Sometime later, I sat a plate of biscuits on the side table, then returned for the steaming cups.

“I know it’s just tea,” I said, “but I’d like to make a toast.” Sherlock took up one cup and nodded. “To dreams,” she said.

“And luck,” I said.

“And blood?” she added.

I laughed. “And blood.”

Our cups touched. Then she turned her back to me.

“Perfect,” I heard her say. "Just perfect."

Then she moved to the window and pulled back the curtain and looked down. “A fourth,” she said. “Something’s different this time.” The front door slammed. Someone was coming up the stairs. I panicked.

“I shouldn’t be here! Sherlock, should I hide?”

“If you wish.” Her back was still to me. Her voice was sounded vague, distracted.

Cup in hand, I fled down the hallway. I opened the last door and shut it, huddling against it, listening.

I heard Sherlock's voice ask “Where?”

A man answered. “Brixton, Lauriston Gardens.”

“What’s new about this one?”

“You know how they never leave notes?”

“Yeah.”

“This one did. Will you come? What’s this, biscuits and tea? Pretending to be human?”

“Shut up. I’ll be right behind.”

“Thank you.” There were footsteps on the stairs and a door closing.

Then Sherlock cried out softly. “Brilliant! Yes! Ah, four serial suicides, and now a note! Oh, it’s the eve of St. George’s Day!”

Then I turned around and noticed that I was not in the loo or in a bedroom, but rather a storage room, but it was a strange storage room for there was only one thing in it: a large wooden box.

I had no time to contemplate my hostess’s eccentricities. She was calling my name.

“John!”

I hurried back up the hall. Sherlock was rushing about, pulling on a long dark coat. She stopped when I appeared.

“Would you like to go to a crime scene?”

“A crime scene?”

“I consult with the police. Would you like to accompany me?”

“Of course, but, uh…” I looked down. Would my strength persist?

“With your hand in mine, all things are possible.” She put a glove on her left hand and shoved the other glove in her coat pocket. I took her bare hand and grabbed my cane with the other.

“Let’s go,” she said.

We took a cab. Right before we exited, she said, “You may feel strange for the next few moments. Don’t worry. You’re fine.”

There were police officers and technicians moving about the house. No one said anything to us. No one acknowledged us at all. Even when they looked in our direction, they seemed to look through us, not at us. We moved, as if invisible, up the stairs. A grey-haired man opened the door at the top. He barked, “Two minutes!” as we entered the room, and he shut the door behind us.

“Who’s she?” he asked, looking at me.

“She’s with me.”

“For Christ’s sake, Sherlock!”

“Do you want my help or not, Detective Inspector?”

“Yes. Please.” He gestured to the body on the floor.

Sherlock dropped my hand, and I was a puppet with my strings cut. I slumped, gripping the handle of the cane with two hands to stay upright. Sherlock flitting around the body like a moth. Just when I felt myself completely drained and in jeopardy of joining the corpse on the floor, there was a hand at my back. With a jolt of energy, I stood up straight, and my thoughts cleared.

Sherlock whispered. “What do you think, Doctor Watson?” I looked at her. “Cause of death?” she pressed.

We knelt together beside the body. I sniffed, then straightened before lifting the right hand and studying the skin.

“Asphyxiation, probably. Passed out, choked on her own vomit. Can’t smell any alcohol on her. It could have been a seizure. Possibly drugs.”

“You know what it was. You’ve read the newspapers.”

“What, she’s one of the suicides? The fourth...?

“Sherlock,” said the man, with arms crossed. “Two minutes, I said. I need anything you’ve got.”

What followed was nothing short of extraordinary. Sherlock knew things about the dead woman. All kinds of things. Incredible things. And yet when she explained how she’d come to her conclusions, everything made sense. I was in awe. She was brilliant. Fantastic. And I told her so.

But soon we were leaving just as we had arrived, hand-in-hand, and once again, we drifted through the crowd without making a ripple. We slipped under the crime scene tape and walked down the street.

“John, it’s time for you to return. I have work to do.”

I won’t lie. I nodded in agreement, but I felt like a pouting child at bedtime. Then a thought occurred.

“Sherlock, there was no blood at that crime scene. I thought you said that you were a blood consultant.”

“Whenever the police are out of their depth, which is always, they consult me. Blood or no.”

* * *

How we travelled the distance so quickly, I will never fathom, but soon we were passing along hospital corridors and stairwells and tiptoeing past a sleeping Renfield.

I crumpled into bed, yawning. Sherlock helped me undress and re-don my hospital gown. Then she hooked me back up to the machines that I was quickly coming to regard as my ‘mechanical minders.’

“I’ll do your draw first,” she said. She returned my clothes to the duffel bag in the closet. Then she opened a cabinet under the sink and pulled out her caddy and a folded lab coat.

“Will you come back and tell me what happened? How the story ended?” I mumbled. My eyes were drooping.

“Little thief,” she said softly, turning my arm over. “I will come back for you in the evening. We will solve it together.”

I fell asleep smiling.


	3. Chapter 3

**29 October**

My face hit the floor. I groaned. Reality is the bitterest pill to swallow. And the hardest surface to strike.

Alarms screeched. I heard running footsteps.

“Miss Watson!”

Four strong arms eased me into a sling. And then I endured the humiliation of being hooked to a crane, hoisted in the air, and deposited back in bed.

“Get some ice. What were you doing?!”

“Walking,” I mumbled. “I thought I could…”

Stern looks. Tsk-tsking. And the dreaded “We’re going to have to keep an eye on this one” as the nurse closed the door.

What a fool I was!

Vital signs were taken. And retaken. Everything that could be checked was checked. Over and over. Pupils. Range of motion. Nurses swooped in. No one knocked.

By the time I bid Sherlock enter, I was heavy with shame and regret. They would be monitoring me carefully tonight. I would not be able to leave with her.

Stupid, stupid Watson!

“Thank you for the invitation. Barging in is so—,“ I couldn’t even look at her, “—barbaric.”

I did not want to tell her what had happened, but I knew I didn’t have to. Explanations weren’t necessary for a woman who could read volumes in the tiniest traces of human behaviour. The blooming bruise on my face would recount the whole story.

“I’m sorry,” I said. My fingers twisted and untwisted the edge of the blanket.

“Are you ready?” she asked. “Fair warning, tonight could be dangerous.” She lowered the bed and tugged at my legs.

“I can’t go, Sherlock. They’re watching me. Because of the fall.” My hand instinctively flew to my head.

“Nonsense.” Her hands were flying over the monitors again. “Do you trust me?”

Our eyes finally met.

“Yes,” I said, and God help me, I did.

“Then leave your minders to me.”

When I was unhooked from the monitors, I slowly pushed myself to sitting on the edge of the bed. Sherlock retrieved a set of clothes from the closet and set them beside me. She stood in front of me, and in that moment it seemed the most natural thing in the world for me to wrap my arms around her and bury my face in her stomach. Her arms encircled me.

“I missed you, too, little thief,” she whispered into the top of my head. “Come on. Let’s go.”

“Wait,” I said as we passed in front of Renfield’s bed. Sherlock frowned. I side-stepped back to the closet. I took a deep breath and let go of Sherlock’s hand. My energy instantly waned, and I tottered on my feet.

“John!”

Sherlock’s hands were at my waist. Strength restored, I bent and dug in my duffel bag. I pulled out a large box of sanitary pads.

“John?”

I opened the box and removed a cloth bundle. I unwrapped it and said, “You want to hide something from male military inspectors. No place better.”

“John.”

I slipped the Browning in the waistband of my trousers and looked back over my shoulder. Sherlock’s pupils were large black saucers rimmed with silver. She licked her lips.

“You said ‘dangerous.’”

* * *

I was surprised that our path did not lead us back to Sherlock’s flat, but rather to the rear of a restaurant.

“Señora Angelo,” said Sherlock, bowing.

“Sherlock! It’s been so very, very long. Your table’s ready.” A petite, dark-haired lady steered us toward a table by the front window. “What can I get for you? I have some fine vintages.”

“No, thank you.” The lady frowned. “But my friend, she needs to keep her strength up.”

“Ah. I have just the thing. A steak Florentine, no? How does that sound?”

A steak? After weeks of hospital food and before that military rations? It sounded like manna from heaven.

“Perfect,” I said, smiling.

* * *

“…Took me less than an hour to find the right skip.”

“Pink,” I said. “You got all that because you realised the case would be pink?”

“Well, it had to be pink, obviously.”

I shook my head. She was a genius. “And now what?” I asked. We held hands under the table.

“Well, I just texted a murderer, and now we wait. How is it?” She nodded to my plate.

“Fabulous! Are you sure you don’t want some?”

Sherlock shook her head. “I don’t eat while I’m working. Digestion slows me down.”

“More for me. Christ, I haven’t eaten this well in a long, long time.”

“I know the feeling. There he is. Come on, John. Now!”

The next few minutes were a blur. We were, I think, flying. We had to have been to cover the distance that we did, index fingers linked all the while. It turned out to be nothing. Not the murderer. We made our way back to the flat. Just as we crossed the threshold, there was a knock at the door.

Sherlock opened it.

“You need to take better care of your friends, Sherlock,” admonished Señora Angelo, offering me my cane. I thanked her, and Sherlock and I walked upstairs.

We sat in armchairs opposite each other. Sherlock’s fingers were steepled at her lips. Her phone beeped. Sherlock glanced at it.

“Lestrade says that Rachel is Jennifer Wilson’s stillborn daughter. She died fourteen years ago.”

“Lestrade? The police officer?”

Sherlock hummed.

“You said that the victims all took the poison themselves, that he makes them take it. Well, maybe he ... I don’t know, talks to them? Maybe he used the death of her daughter somehow.”

Sherlock made a noise. Then there was a long silence.

I wanted so much to be helpful. I fell back on my failsafe. “Tea?”

Sherlock hummed again. I took that as a ‘yes’ and headed for the kitchen. I heard her muttering to herself.

“Oh! She was clever! She didn’t lose her phone. She planted it on him! Password is…Rachel!”

Think, Watson, think! Sherlock’s words of earlier that evening returned to me. It was a riddle:

_Who do we trust, even if we don’t know them?_

_Who passes unnoticed wherever they go?_

_Who hunts in the middle of a crowd?_

My hands went about the business of making tea, but my mind played those three questions over and over. So lost in my own thoughts was I, that I didn’t recognise that Sherlock was speaking to me.

“…stay, John.”

“What?” I put the box of biscuits back in the cupboard and stepped into the sitting room.

Sherlock was gone. I heard the front door slam. I flew to the window. There she was, getting in a taxi.

Taxi! Oh, Christ! The riddle. Taxi driver! Not the passenger, the driver!

Could be dangerous.

I grabbed my cane. Adrenaline powered me down the stairs and into a second cab.

“Follow her!” I shouted.

As we made our way through the darkness, I realised my folly. I had no money. I had no strength. I had nothing but a gun in my belt and the certainty that my friend—my only friend—was in danger. I crumpled in the seat and held my throbbing head in my hands.

“Here we are, Miss. That’ll be…”

I lifted my head and peeked out the window. Through a brightly-lit window, I saw Sherlock follow a man.

Christ, he had a gun.

Okay, okay. Broken body, be damned. I had to do this. I grabbed my cane and shoved the taxi door open. Then I scrambled toward the building. Behind me, I heard the driver call,

“Hey, hey…”

* * *

Take the shot, Watson. Take the shot.

I took the shot. And my world went black.

* * *

_Beep, beep, beep..._

Grey eyes. Dream?

“You are an idiot.”

I looked around me.

Hospital. Machines. Sherlock. Sherlock!

“Are you okay?” is what I intended to say. What came out was a jumble of sounds and noises.

“Yes. Rest. I will come back tonight.”

My eyelids felt so heavy, my mind so muddled. I listened.

Gloves snapping. The crinkle of paper and plastic.

I tried in vain to open my eyes, to sit up.

An impatient sigh. A hand on my chest. Over my heart.

“Rest, little thief.”

Then a groan—not my own.

“Mistress!”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ambient Mix for this chapter: [John's Bath](http://movies-other.ambient-mixer.com/john-s-bath)

**30 October**

_Knock, knock._

“Come in.”

“Thank you for the invitation. Barging in is just…”

“Barbaric,” I said with a smile.

Christ, she was gorgeous. Dark coat with the collar turned up. Long hair flowing. Silver eyes flashing.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Better. How are you?”

She removed her gloves; then she held them in one hand and slapped them against the palm of the other. “I am…humbled…by what you did last night, truly humbled, and I am not, by nature, a humble creature.”

When she looked at me, her expression was unreadable, a mosaic of emotions at which I could only guess. I chose to soothe rather than speculate. “It was my pleasure,” I replied with as much tenderness as I could convey with the simple phrase. I brushed my hand against her cheek. Her skin was soft and smooth, but cold from the night air. “I would like to know what happened. The real story. I’ve read the official one, ‘Body discovered at Roland-Kerr Further Education College.’” I gestured to the folded newspaper at the foot of the bed.

“Would you like to come home with me tonight?”

“What’s on the agenda? Wrestling gangsters? Outwitting a criminal mastermind?” I teased.

“Just a quiet night in. Tea and book by the fire? Bit of music, perhaps.”

“Sounds lovely.”

“I returned your, uh, possession to its original location.”

“Thank you. Shall I bring it tonight?”

“May I borrow it for a spot of indoor target practise?” She wiggled her eyebrows.

“Absolutely not.”

She pouted beautifully.

* * *

I realised that though it was only my third visit, Sherlock’s flat felt more like home than any place I’d lived in recent memory.

I made tea. She readied the fire. Then we sat opposite each other, and she recounted all that had occurred the previous night.

“I told you to stay.”

“I’m not a dog, Sherlock. You were in danger. You nearly got yourself killed.”

“So did you!”

“You were going to take that damn pill, weren’t you? Is that what you do? Risk your life to prove your clever? Idiot!”

“Nothing would have happened to me.”

“Oh, so you’re different from the four poor sods he killed?”

“Yes, I am!”

I huffed and decided to change the subject. “I didn’t see your name in papers. That Detective Inspector Lestrade got all the credit.”

“I’m a private consultant. I don’t need a public image,” she said sullenly.

I shrugged and stared into the teacup. I felt her gaze on me.

“John, are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” I reassured her. “Well, when I’m with you, I’m fine. When I’m not, I fall and crack my head.”

“No, I mean, you did kill a man.”

“He wasn’t a very nice man, though. And a bloody awful cabbie.” I made a silly face and giggled.

Sherlock relaxed and smiled. She took a sip of tea and then said, “I took care of yours, by the way. Cabbie.”

“Thank you. I’ll pay you back…”

She waved a hand. “You really think I’m going to accept money from you? You risked your life to…”

Once again, we were treading into unchartered territory. “You’ve never heard of this Moriarty?” I asked quickly.

“No! So she must be new. And powerful. It’s curious…”

Her eyes drifted to the fire, and it seemed that her thoughts wandered even farther. I abandoned my questions and left her to her musings. We watched the fire and drank our tea.

* * *

 

When I had returned my cup to its saucer for the final time, I decided to break the silence.

“How about a book?”

I pushed myself to standing and approached the nearest set of bookshelves. I spied a copy of Bram Stoker’s _Dracula_.

“Ah-ha! This is appropriate, seeing as how tomorrow is all Hallow’s Eve.”

Sherlock stood and reached above me. “How about this one?” She pulled out a copy of Le Fanu’s _Carmilla_. I looked up at her. Her lips were curled in a bewitching smile.

“You can’t really go wrong with Victorian lesbian vampires, can you?”

“John, it pleases me greatly to hear you say so. I am glad that we share _literary tastes_.”

I laughed and took the thin tome from her hand. “Cheeky flirt.”

I curled up in the armchair with the book and a blanket. Sherlock donned a dark silk dressing gown over her clothing and began waltzing about the room, playing her violin.

My head bobbed, and I startled out of an almost-nap. Had I been back in hospital, I don’t think I would have even noticed the dull soreness that twisted along my lower abdomen; it would have been one tree amidst the forest of pains that I experienced day and night. But while in Sherlock’s company, I had not felt one single discomfort of any kind, so the ache caught me by surprise. It persisted. And grew stronger.

Sherlock moved to the fire and stoked it brusquely. “Are you cold, John?”

I did feel a chill, and this new sensation alerted me to the nature of my affliction.

“Uh, I’d best return,” I said reluctantly. Sherlock nodded. “Loo first,” I added, rising from the chair.

I was relieved that my pants were yet unstained. I stood and flushed and fixed my trousers. Then a flash of chrome caught my eye. I pushed the shower curtain back to get a better look. There were fixtures sunk all around the sides of the bathtub and a large gauge at the far end.

I asked Sherlock about it.

“A bit of my own tinkering. There are jets and a thermostat to maintain the water at a constant temperature.”

My eyebrows rose. “A spa bath. That never gets cold?”

“Yes.”

I looked back up the hallway.

A bath. A hot bath. Christ, how long had it been? One of the many indignities of hospital life is being washed. Infrequently. In a bed. By people, even the well-meaning ones, who are in a hurry. And, of course, there were no hot baths in warzones.

How good would it feel to soak? Not good. Exquisite.

“You’re welcome to use it. I can lend you clothing.”

Sherlock’s words were so soft they might have been a lover’s caress. I looked at her. I don’t know what she saw in my face, but she licked her lips and her eyes flashed silver.

“I’ll draw it for you, John. I have oils, too.”

The serpent in the Garden of Eden could not have been more persuasive. She led me down the hall. She undressed me and wrapped me in her own dressing gown while the tub filled. Soon the tiny room was fogged with steam and heavy with the scent of her. I recognised the latter from my dream. From her hair.

I sank down into the water. Two sea sponges bobbed like buoys. I closed my eyes. The dull ache was gone, of course, along with every care or concern I’d ever had in my unlucky life.

Like a dream.

* * *

A shock of cold air woke me.

“Tea?”

I turned my head. There was an arm and a hand and a steaming cup of tea and a sliver of Sherlock’s face in the cracked door. I pushed out of the water and reached for the cup. Sherlock pulled it back, smirking. With one hand gripping the edge of tub, I lurched farther. Water sloshed; it dripped off my torso and formed small puddles on the floor. I snatched the cup from her hand and fell back against the side of the tub. She opened the door wider. The intruding draft made my exposed skin erupt in gooseflesh. Sherlock’s eyes travelled unabashedly over me.

“Is this seduction?” I asked, looking up from the cup.

She floated towards me until we were eye-to-eye.

“Depends. Is it working?”

“Oh God, yes.”

I reached for her with one hand and buried my fingers in her hair. I pulled her close and kissed her lips. Her mouth moved against mine. I pulled away, and she huffed impatiently.

“Christ, you’re hungry for me, aren’t you?” I breathed. I caught her plump bottom lip between my teeth.

“You have no idea,” she murmured. “Kiss me.” Tea and cup dropped into the water, and then both of my hands were in her hair. I kissed her softly, slowly, deeply, in a way that I hoped communicated my desire to worship her entire body for as long as she would allow and in whatever way would please her. I kissed the creases of her mouth and her chin and her eyelids and those hard, cut-glass cheekbones.

She pushed and pulled me until my back was once again against the tub. I had the vague notion that there was something I should hide from her. My right hand hovered toward my left shoulder. She drew it away, saying, “If you think your scars make you anything but more desirable to me then you are less perceptive than I supposed.”

Then she was mapping my mangled skin with her tongue.

“Sherlock,” I sighed.

“Beautiful,” she grunted. Then her mouth moved to the side of my neck. Her tongue found the spot of skin that betrayed my bounding pulse and licked. And licked. She cupped my breasts and thumbed my nipples until I squirmed. Then she rubbed a soft sponge between my legs.

“Oh God. Please, Sherlock. Please.”

With the scent of her all around and the warmth of the bath and the delicious friction, it wasn’t long before I was keening and calling her name. My arm flew back, and she caught my hand in hers. I squeezed it tight as I came.

“John.” I felt her breath on my neck. I tilted my head back.

“I know,” I slurred, turning my head to plant a sloppy kiss somewhere near her temple.

“You cannot possibly know.” She turned her head. I kissed her lips.

“I know you’re brilliant. I know you’re gorgeous. I know that for some ungodly reason you’ve decided to let me in your extraordinary life and for that I’m eternally grateful.”

“Don’t be grateful.”

“Too late. Meeting you is the best bit of luck I’ve ever had. I, I, I…” I turned to her. She put a finger to my lips.

“Don’t, John. You don’t know me.”

“Then let me,” I said. “Let me know you, Sherlock. Let me love you.” I pressed my lips to her cheek and then nuzzled along her jawline. “Show me what you like. Or let me discover for myself…” I placed two wet hands on her shoulders. She took them and kissed the top of each in turn.

“You will, little thief, but I’m afraid it’s time for you to return. The water’s cooling.”

I frowned and back at the bath. “I thought you said…”

“I set the timer hours ago. I was afraid that if left to your own devices, you’d stew yourself to death.”

“Hours?” I held up a wrinkled hand. “Christ, I’m pruney!”

“Quite.”

I stood. So did she.

She was staring. I looked down and watched as one long, elegant index finger trailed across my stomach, tracing the line where pink skin began.

“You’re so warm,” she said in a low voice, as if to herself.

“Are you cold, Sherlock?”

“Always,” she whispered. It sounded like a confession.

“Then let me warm you.”

I stepped out of the tub and wrapped my arms around her. She scooped her hands under my buttocks and, in one smooth spin, lifted me off the floor and propped me on the edge of the sink. I spread my legs, and she settled between them. I lifted my knees, and she began to rut against me.

Christ, it was glorious. She found just the rhythm and angle to re-kindle the sweetness inside me. I threw my head back, knocking it against the door of medicine cabinet. Interestingly, it was not the conventional mirrored kind but rather a wooden panel decorated in a stencilled fleur-de-lis pattern. Sherlock cushioned my head with her hand. My upper body curled so that her mouth latched easily around my nipple, concealing a flickering tongue that was driving me mad. Her other hand was guiding our hips as they rocked together. My fingers dug into her shoulders for purchase, but found none.

My body was at her mercy.

“FUCK!”

I clamped my thighs around her waist and bucked into her.

She raised her head and looked down at my body, still trembling in the afterglow. Then she ran an appraising hand from the ridges of my ribs to my hip, over my buttock, and down my thigh. It stopped under my knee. She raised my leg higher and bent her head to kiss the nearest available skin.

I marvelled at the gesture: not only was I strong in Sherlock’s presence, I was also preternaturally flexible.

“You are so distractingly fuckable, little thief, and the heat you give off when you come is nothing short of—“

“Why do you call me that?” I put a finger under her chin. She raised her head. Her eyes were a soft grey, like the fur of a cat. I tucked a damp tendril behind her ear and kissed her cheek.

“Because you did the impossible: you stole from me that which I do not possess.”

I looked into those grey eyes and said solemnly, “You have a heart, Sherlock.” I extended my hand. She caught it before it reached her breast and brought my fingers to her lips.

“I don’t, actually. But yours beats strong enough for both of us.”

What else was I to do but embrace her and kiss her until such ludicrous thoughts were banished from her mind?

* * *

I had spent so much of the previous days holding Sherlock’s hand—indeed, I suspected that I had traversed a good deal of London in that fashion—that crossing into the hallway hand-in-hand seemed in no way strange. Her dressing gown hung loosely from my shoulders.

We took a step and kissed chastely. We took another step. This time when our mouths met, my tongue caressed hers. Then the wall was at my back, and we were kissing again.

“So greedy, little thief,” she whispered against my lips.

“You’re as greedy as I am, vampire,” I teased, sucking at that perfect Cupid’s bow.

“Far greedier,” she admitted; I felt her smile against my lower lip.

As her mouth moved down my body, her hands tugged at the dark silk until it pooled on the floor. She kissed the pulse at my neck, the skin over my beating heart, then she rolled her forehead against my lower belly and nuzzled it tenderly.

I cleared my throat. “You, you might not want to…”

“You’re mad,” she replied, “if you think I don’t want to…”

Then there was a wet, gentle warmth on my clit. So light, so teasing, so wonderfully, wonderfully…

“Oh, Christ! Sherlock!”

I bat my hands clumsily on the back of her head. She rose and cupped her hand between my legs.

“Use this.”

“Much more and I’m going to make a complete mess of you,” I protested weakly. Then my head dropped, and my teeth sank into the ridge of her shoulder through her clothing.

“Please do.”

* * *

I tried to dress. Really, I did. But as the vest went over my head, Sherlock’s fingers were teasing my nipples, the ones she’d just finished sucking to pebbling buds. And pants, well, the pants never made it past my knees.

“Let me, let me, John.” Her voice was raw.

“Now who’s mad? Anything.”

Anything turned out to be my face smashed against the wall—which was papered in the same fleur de lis pattern as the medicine cabinet, I noted distractedly— and one knee on the arm of the sofa while the other balanced precariously on the back of it.

Sherlock’s hands gripped my thighs hard. Her tongue was deep inside me, and, despite the anatomical impossibility, it felt as if she was lapping at my very core. I wanted to savour the feeling, to maintain this connection between us. I tried to pull away, to lessen the intensity, but Sherlock held me fast against her. And the pleasure soon overwhelmed me.

I crumpled, and Sherlock drew me into her lap. The lower half of her face shone wet. She grinned.

“You are so ripe, John. It’s only a matter of hours. I will come for you. Very soon.”

“You’d better. Considering how many times I’ve just come for you,” I replied with a bawdy snicker.

She laughed and stretched me out along the sofa. I looked up at her. “I want to touch you, Sherlock,” I whined.

“You will touch every fibre of my being, I promise, John. And satisfy me completely. Of that, I have no doubt.” Her hand touched my thighs and stomach and the underside of my breasts, but her eyes were fixed on the juncture of my legs.

I spread my thighs and raised my knees and said in a low voice, “You like my cunt, don’t you, Sherlock?”

She leaned forward and licked her lips like a predatory beast. “I adore it.”

I pushed up on one elbow and opened my folds with the fingers of the other hand. “Want another taste?”

She spoke in a quick, clipped tone. “I would drink from you for days, wring from your fragile organism as much pleasure as it can sustain.”

I shivered at her words and the feral intensity of her gaze.

“Take me,” I said.

And she did.                                              

It was not pretty: me clawing at the back of her head and screaming her name; her buried between my legs, devouring me—yes, devouring, for that’s the only word in my feeble vocabulary to adequately describe it. It was savage and rude and, to use Sherlock’s least favoured word, barbaric.

By the time my breathing had slowed, even I had to acknowledge the passage of time. I had to return. But before I was fully dressed, I came once more, with Sherlock’s teeth nibbling sweetly at my neck and her hand shoved possessively down my pants.

“Do you feel it?” I asked, though not quite sure what I was asking.

“Yes,” she answered.

“Do you know what it is?”

One side of her mouth lifted in a half-smile. “I think so. I didn’t believe it existed, but now…”

“Will you tell me?”

Her face darkened. “No.” She buttoned her coat and put on her gloves. “Come on. We’re late.”

* * *

On our return journey, I kept my eyes fixed on our joined hands. When we reached my bed, I was gripped by the panic that all new lovers feel at the first impending separation.

I squeezed Sherlock’s hand, and she squeezed back.

“Hours, John. As soon as I’m able.” I nodded and understood it for the vow it was.

She hooked me back to the machines, and I turned my arm over and closed my eyes.

The snapping of gloves. The crinkling of paper and plastic.

It struck me as remarkable how in a few short days, they had become sounds as intimate, as familiar, and as welcome as a lover’s sigh.

* * *

I woke to a sharp sting.

“Ouch!”

I opened my eyes to find a needle in my arm.  


	5. Chapter 5

**31 October**

“Sorry to wake you. All done.”

Brown hair. Pony tail. Young. Lab coat. Badge read ‘Molly.’

She pressed a piece of gauze to my arm and fixed a plaster atop it.

“I’ve already had my blood drawn this morning.”

“Oh! Really? Uh,” she dropped the test tube in a plastic bag and took up a clipboard, “no, no, you’re…”

She glanced from the clipboard to the hospital bracelet on my wrist. “No, not today,” she said, smiling.

The nurse entered. “How are we this morning? Getting our blood drawn. Very good.”

“I’d like to see my lab results.”

“Of course. They’ll be ready,” she looked at the phlebotomist. “By noon?”

“Yes,” said Molly. “If not sooner.” She pulled off her gloves.

“No, I mean the ones from yesterday and the day before.”

The nurse stared. “You haven’t had any lab orders.”

“No draws?”

“No. Not since your re-admission.” The nurse disappeared behind the curtain. “How are we, Miss Renfield?”

“Plus, you couldn’t have had any sticks, look at your arms,” said Molly. “They’re clean.”

I turned my palms up, then down, studying the length of both arms. She was right.

“Do you have a colleague named Sherlock Holmes? Phlebotomist? Tall? Dark hair? Smart?”

She shook her head.

“Are you sure?”

“I think I’d remember a name like that.”

“Would you mind handing me my phone before you leave?”

* * *

The gnawing feeling in my stomach grew. There was no Sherlock Holmes in the online hospital directory. I called the main phone number for the hospital and got the same response.

No Sherlock Holmes.

Christ, who was she?

Finally, I googled her, but the only Sherlock Holmes I found had died in 1891.

I thought up explanations. I had misheard her name. She was living under a false name. The possibilities became more sinister as the day progressed. She was a fugitive. She was a thief. She was a murderer.

Eventually, I fell asleep.

* * *

“Mistress doesn’t love you! Mistress loves me!”

I opened my eyes and screamed. Alarms rang out.

The face was a breath’s distance from mine. Half of it was melted, the left eye socket and nostril warped into thin slits, the misshaped skin, a craggy mask. Her mouth moved, revealing pointy yellow teeth.

“She promised me live things! With blood in them! You’re live! You’ve blood in you!”

Her eyes were wild. Her clawed hands lashed out at me.

“Get off me!” I yelled. I pushed her, but her first blow had already found its mark, leaving four gashes across my chest.

“Blood! Blood! Blood!” she chanted.

_KNOCK, KNOCK!_

“Come in, Mistress! There’s blood!” Renfield cackled. “Let’s feast!”

“NO!” I screamed.

“Thank you, Renfield. I hate to barge in, so barbaric. But then so are you.”

Sherlock waved a hand, and the alarms quieted.

Renfield pointed to my chest. “Look, blood! Matthew! Twenty-five! Twenty-three! Well done, good and faithful servant! Hee, hee. I’ve been faithful in a few things, Mistress! Make me ruler over many things!”

Sherlock grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and flung her against the far wall. She hit it with a loud thud and then collapsed on the floor.

“John.” Sherlock approached me, with her hands dug into her coat pockets.

“Who are you?” I yelled. I reached for the call light.

The next few moments were a blur. I fought as if my life depended on it because I was convinced it did. And I will never know whether it was Sherlock’s superior strength or my own weakened state that mattered more, but by the end of it, I was gagged, and my hands and feet were bound.

She turned me on my back. I tried to hit her with my head. And then with my knees. I tried to scream. I tried to throw myself off the bed. I tried to throw myself against the call light. I eyed the closet. If I could only get to my gun…

Sherlock bent her head to me, and I felt the swipe of her tongue on my chest. The burn of Renfield’s scratches evaporated.

Sherlock straightened and looked down, nodding. She removed her coat and dropped it on the bed beside me. When she turned, I saw her profile. Her face was transformed, her features disfigured.

She was a monster.

She advanced slowly, ominously on Renfield’s body.

I tried to scream. My eyes teared.

Sherlock lifted Renfield as if she were a doll, and then the pair disappeared behind the curtain.

Oh, Christ, I thought. She’s killing her. Then she’s going to kill me.

I wiggled frantically until I reached the edge of the bed. Then I flung myself hard against the railing and managed to land on the floor.

“No, no, no.”

Sherlock stood over me; her white shirt was splattered with blood.

I pinched my eyes shut and prayed. Please, God, let me live.

Up, up, up. Wool against my cheek. I opened my eyes.

Renfield. Dead. In her bed. So much blood. What was the line from Macbeth?

Sherlock laughed. “Indeed, John. Who would have thought the old girl to have had so much blood in her?”

* * *

Sherlock carried me to her flat. At every opportunity, I tried to break free, but her strength far outpaced mine, and my bonds were secure. In the upstairs bedroom, I was bound to a bed, hands and feet splayed. The gag was still in place, but the hospital gown had been exchanged for two blankets, a soft one next to my skin and a heavy wool one on top. She pushed more pillows behind my back and under my arms.

“Are you cold, John?”

As if it mattered. Obviously, she was intent on torturing me before she killed me or she would have left me gutted like Renfield in the hospital.

Christ, how unlucky can one woman be? And how stupid?

Apart from the bed, there was a small wooden table and a straight chair. On the table, there was a silver chalice, the kind that would not look amiss on an altar during High Mass, and on the seat of the chair was a bag from a chemist’s shop.

“I’ll be back.” Sherlock disappeared through the doorway. I heard footsteps descending the stairs, and water running. She returned wearing a clean shirt with sleeves rolled high.

Her back was to me, and I could not see what she was preparing. When she turned, there was something folded in her hand.

As she moved towards me, I forced myself not to tremble. I would not give her the satisfaction of seeing my fear.

“If there were any way that I could ease the discomfort of this, I would. But anything I might consider would obstruct the purpose.”

Spoken like every sick fuck ever just before they do their sick fuckery, I thought.

“I realise I sound like a murderer justifying her crime.”

You are a murderer. You killed Renfield. You probably killed those other four people and tricked me into killing the cabbie for you.

Then I remembered about the previous night. How could someone…?

My eyes pleaded with her. Don’t do this, Sherlock. Whatever it is, don’t.

“I shan’t insult your intelligence by asking you to relax. It will hurt. And I don’t expect you to believe me, but I am sorry for that.”

Then her hands were under the blanket. Then her hands were on me. Then one hand was inside me, deep inside, turning, twisting. I screamed around the gag. Tears streamed down my face.

Something popped. Then her hand was gone, and she leapt from the bed.

She held up her hand and watched one red droplet as it flowed down her index finger to the base of her thumb. She licked its entire trail, then swallowed loudly and sighed.

I closed my eyes and heard a bag crinkling and more footsteps on the stairs. When I opened them, Sherlock was unfurling a third blanket over me without meeting my gaze. She shoved more pillows on either side of me, under the blankets.

“I don’t know if you’re cold,” she mumbled. Then she walked towards the door and leaned against the strip of wall beside frame. She sank down to the floor. She produced a small red ball and threw it against the opposite wall. It bounced back to her.

_Thuh-thunk, thuh-thunk, thuh-thunk._

It sounded like a heartbeat.

Finally, she said, “You’ve got questions. If you don’t scream, I’ll remove the gag.”

What, do you all sick fucks read from the same script?

She loosened the gag.

“FIRE!” I screamed.

She tied the gag back and sighed. “Let’s start at the beginning: I am a vampire.”

I snorted. You are not a vampire, Sherlock Holmes or whoever you are. You are a sick fuck who…

“You don’t believe me, of course. ‘The strength of the vampire is that people will not believe in him.’ Your films get as much right as they get wrong about us.”

You are not a vampire! There’s no such thing as vampires!

Finally, she looked at me. I stared hard at her. You’re delusional, you sick fuck. I trusted you and you kidnapped me, tortured me, and now you’re spouting utter nonsense…

“You require proof? Of course you do. Fangs? Sure.” She faced me, and her entire countenance transformed as it had earlier in the hospital room, but this time her mouth gaped open and I watched four canines lengthen and sharpen. Then she closed her mouth and her face and teeth returned to their normal forms.

“How about a bit of shape-shifting? Something old Hollywood,” she snapped. She began removing her clothing piece by piece. She folded and carefully laid each item in a pile at the foot of the bed. Her skin was white; her nipples a dusky grey; her mons covered in coarse grey hair. I had never seen any woman her age look as she did.

Grey. White. But with the smooth skin and glossy hair of a younger woman.

Then she was gone. And something was fluttering about the room. It landed on the bed.

A bat. It flapped its wings and tittered.

Then she was sitting on the bed, nude. “That is not the form I prefer.” She disappeared again. A grey cat crept from under the bed. It jumped gracefully onto the pile of blankets and padded towards me, blinking. Its eyes. They were her eyes. Then the cat turned around and swished its tail and leapt to the floor. And then Sherlock was standing at the foot of the bed, redressing.

Drugs. She had drugged me somehow. And now I was…

“It is not a hallucination, John. I did not drug you, well, not in the sense that you’re thinking. I have strength, energy, if you prefer, and when I touch you or when you enter my lair, my home,” she gestured to the room, “I can convey that strength to you. I can move very quickly, and when you are linked to me physically, you can as well. I can also convey invisibility.”

I thought about the past three days. Then I shook my head. It was impossible.

“Not impossible. Just highly improbable. Will you let me ungag you? I want to talk _with_ you. I like talking with you.”

Then maybe you shouldn’t have kidnapped me, tied me up, and assaulted me, you sick fuck! Maybe you shouldn’t have murdered Renfield!

She looked at me and sighed. Then she returned to her spot on the floor and her bouncing red ball.

_Thuh-thunk, thuh-thunk, thuh-thunk._

“I must feed. I require less and feed less often than most of my kind, but I cannot ignore my transport indefinitely.”

Feed. What, was she going to cook me and eat me? Sick fuck! Cannibal!

“I feed on blood. Like almost all vampires, I prefer human blood. Whatever anyone tells you, coconut water is _not_ the same.”

I frowned. What?

She shrugged. “Of human blood, I prefer AB-. I seem to digest it easier, and quite frankly, I prefer the taste. The day of your car accident, I had my eye on a couple of bags at the hospital, but they went to you.”

 _You stole my lunch_. Christ Almighty.

“Just on a whim, I decided to visit you and get a bit back. I was wary because humans in hospitals are usually ill and pumped full of all kinds of medications that change the flavour and the appeal of their blood. But you, your blood…”

I had refused the painkillers. I had refused the blood thinners. Hell, I’d refused everything, except a vitamin or two.

“Your blood was so _good_! It was the best I’d ever tasted. I returned the next morning and got another sample. Then I took a peek at your medical file. I wanted more, more blood to be sure, but I also wanted more of you. I wanted to talk to you. And once I started talking to you, I wanted to make you laugh and smile and say things like ‘extraordinary’ and ‘fantastic.’ I thought that maybe, just maybe, you might fit in my world. And you did! We were solving crimes together! And you must’ve felt some of what I felt or you wouldn’t have shot the cabbie!”

The look in her eyes! God help me, I was beginning to believe her. But none it accounted for why I was tied to the bed. And what happened to Renfield.

“I don’t like to hunt. I don’t like to feed that way. I dedicate a considerable portion of my time to developing ways that I can avoid hunting to feed. That’s why I loiter around blood banks and impersonate phlebotomists. My goal is to synthesize blood alchemically, but so far none of my results have rivalled the real thing.” She sighed. “And I must feed. Every twenty-eight days. And above all, I want to feed on your blood, John. It satisfies me in a way that blood from no other donor or prey has. Ever. When I drink it, I feel _warm_.” She closed her eyes and brought her hands to her chest and hummed. Then she opened them.

I nodded, hoping she understood. She reached behind my head and loosened the gag.

“Did you kill those four people?” I asked

“No! The case happened as I told you. Jefferson Hope forced them to take the pill.”

“Why did you kill Renfield?”

Sherlock’s nostrils flared. “Because she hurt you.”

“She knew what you were.”

“Your films are correct, John. I can enthrall humans; it’s just a more potent form of the energy that allows you to walk when you hold my hand. But I won’t feed on thralls.” She made a disgusted face. “And enthralling humans designated female will, I’ve discovered, suspend some organic processes. So I couldn’t ease your discomfort earlier.” She bit her lip and looked away.

Organic processes. Blood. Oh, Christ. She’d put something inside me. To catch the blood.

She studied my face. “You don’t need that blood, John. You’re just going to bin it. I don’t even have to pierce your skin. And it’s perfect for me. It’s made to nourish a human life, how much more will it nourish an undead one? I don’t want just any blood. I want _your_ blood. What you felt yesterday, what you craved and how I satisfied you, that is fraction of what I feel, of what I crave, of how your blood, that tiny drop, for example, satisfies me. I think you are…my mate. Not thrall. _Mate_.”

“This is how you treat your mate?!” I spat, tugging on my bonds.

“If I had asked you, would you have given it to me?”

No. Of course not. I would’ve said you were a sick fuck and run away screaming. Which is what I was still planning to do, the moment I was able.

“Is your name really Sherlock Holmes?”

She smiled. “Yes.”

“Yesterday…”

“Everything I said was true. You are so very precious to me.”

“Because of my blood type…”

“Blood is one part of it, not just the type, the chemistry and composition unique to your body. I would love to analyse your blood, to try to determine the exact elements, but the temptation to consume it immediately has been too strong. It is more than blood, though, we are, we are,” she looked around the room as if the walls could provide the words, “us, together. Crime scenes and puzzles and tea and Victorian novels and nights by the fire. And blood. And I meant what I said, if you were amenable, I would drink directly from you. Pleasure you for days while I fed.”

I shivered as I had the day before. “Now what happens?”

“We wait for the cup to fill. I won’t release you, John. I’m too hungry.” She bowed her head at the last phrase. “Would you like some water? Or tea?” I shook my head. She reached behind me and shifted the pillows. “Are you cold?” I shook my head again. “Oddly enough, human reaction to temperature is the most difficult thing for me to deduce. It’s my one blind spot.”

“And when I stop producing, when you’ve had your fill, you’ll…kill…me.” I forced myself to say the words plainly.

“Kill you?” Her eyes grew wide. “John, I’ve just killed _for_ you. As you have for me. How can you think…?”

“I can think it, Sherlock, because I’m tied to your bed! Being held against my will! And used for your selfish purposes!”

She stared at me with an anguished expression. She opened her mouth to speak and then closed it. Then she put her hands to her ears and shook her head like a toddler. “I can’t think logically when I’m hungry!” She tore off her clothes and disappeared. Beneath the mound of strewn clothes, a grey feline head poked out. The cat stepped gingerly toward me and then curled up on my chest. And purred.

I dozed on and off for hours, much as I did in hospital.

“It’s time, John.” Sherlock was dressed. She pushed all the blankets up to my waist and moved slowly, reaching inside me and pulling out the cup. Her eyes never left it. She walked to the table and poured the contents of the cup into the chalice. Then she spritzed the sides of the cup with a water bottle and let the pink drops fall into the chalice. She spritzed it once more and dried the cup with a cloth and set it on separate cloth on the table. She returned to the bed and pulled the blankets over my lower half.

“Thank you,” she said.

She returned to the chalice and drank. More spritzing. More drinking. Finally, she set the chalice back on the table and groaned. She stumbled backwards until her legs hit the edge of the bed, and then she flopped down on it. She groaned again.

“JOHN!”

And if I hadn’t been witness to what had transpired moments earlier, I would’ve sworn I was watching a woman in the throes of the best orgasm of her life. She thrashed and moaned and called my name. And her skin took on a lovely colour, much deeper and darker and, yes, alive, than earlier that evening. The colour didn’t fade when her breathing finally slowed, and she looked at me through half-lidded eyes.

“John,” she purred. And what happened next is, to me, the most unbelievable part of my whole story.

“Come, drink, Sherlock,” I said, and she crawled up the bed, burrowed under the blankets, and began to feed.

* * *

A door slammed.

“SHERLOCK!”

There was a loud, angry growl, and what emerged from beneath the blankets was the monster that murdered Renfield.

“HELP!” I screamed. The old sodden gag went back on. Rapid footsteps down the stairs.

“Have you lost your mind? And your olfactory sense? I AM FEEDING!” Sherlock roared.

A woman’s voice answered. “You mean that you have fed. And fed well, by the look of it. You look better than you have in centuries! Good on you, Sherlock!” There was the sound of a hand slapping a back. “Now go finish her off, there’s important business at hand.”

“There is no business more important than feeding, Mycroft!”

“I’ve found her.”

“Moriarty?”

“Yes, and she is everything we suspected. We have much work to do. Go on.”

In moments, Sherlock had reappeared and re-inserted the cup inside me.

“I will return to you, little thief,” she said and brushed her lips to my hair.

And then she was gone.

* * *

I dozed again. Then I smelled something. Gas.

_BOOM!_

When I opened my eyes, I was in the street in the middle of a cloud of dust. Piles of rubble were all around, and sirens wailed in the distance. I pushed bits of bed, headboard, and footboard, off me. My arms and legs were free, but they still bore Sherlock’s ties. I found a broken shard of glass and though it cut deeply into my hand, I managed to liberate myself completely. Then I stood on wobbly legs. I fell once and, squatting, reached in myself and wrenched the cup free. Blood spilled all over my naked body.

Then I ran down the street, screaming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the [tumbler post](http://heavyflowproblems.tumblr.com/post/127047275345/foolishwriter-homestuckorbust) that inspired the whole fic.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who's taken this journey with me! Happy Halloween!

I set the pen down on the table. I laced my fingers together and stretched them until my knuckles cracked. Then I gathered the sheets of paper into a neat stack and handed them over.

“Captain Watson, I asked you to write down everything that happened to you.”

“It did happen to me, Doctor Thompson. Every word of that happened to me!”

She sighed. “Captain Watson, you’ve suffered three very serious traumas: first, your war injury; second, the car accident, and finally, witnessing Lieutenant Renfield’s suicide—“

“She did not commit suicide! Sherlock Holmes murdered her!”

“—any one of which might lead to a psychotic break, but in rapid succession—“

“I am not crazy! Christ, I’m so tired of saying that! I don’t belong here.”

“Captain Watson, you’re a doctor. If you knew of a patient who had been found in the street, naked, covered in blood—“

“—it was not Renfield’s blood. It was _my_ blood. And if you’d done any analysis at all you would know that. She, she—“

“—babbling incoherently about supernatural creatures who had assaulted them—“

“I know, I know,” I muttered, shaking my head.

“—what would be your clinical recommendation?”

“How did I get out in the street?”

“No one knows. But that oversight, plus the one that allowed a patient with Lieutenant Renfield’s background access to a surgical scalpel, plus the electrical issues in the room where you both received care will, no doubt, be the subject of much scrutiny and litigation for years to come. I don’t envy the hospital administrators right now. Captain Watson, we’ve been over this many times. It’s been almost a month. Don’t you think it’s time to focus on recovery and moving forward?” She glanced at the clock. “It’s ten o’ clock.”

“No! No meds.”

“Captain Watson…”

“I am not psychotic! And I am only anxious and depressed because I am locked in here! Why won’t anyone believe me?”

“Doctor Stamford did believe you, Captain. When you were first admitted, he called Scotland Yard. There is a Detective Inspector Lestrade. But he has never heard of you or any Sherlock Holmes. His name was in the newspapers and on television. It was a highly-publicized case.”

“Maybe he’s a thrall. Angelo’s…”

“Does not exist. Neither does Sherlock Holmes. Except in your mind. In this story that you concocted.” She waved the bundle of papers. “Let it go. Focus on your recovery, Captain Watson. It’s been almost a month. It’s time to move on.” There was a buzz; she checked her pager. “Also, I’m afraid Doctor Stamford has been called away unexpectedly. I can cancel your one-on-one for today or you can have it with the locum doctor on-call.”

Who cared? Not me, certainly. One more person to sigh and scribble on a legal pad. There had been dozens. I waved a hand. “Fine.” The door closed quietly.

I buried my face in my hands. My days blurred together, but my nights were singular, full of dreams that turned into nightmares and nightmares that turned into dreams. I woke screaming. I woke moaning. I woke drenched in a cold sweat. I woke on fire with lust. I woke hidden under the bed, rubbing at phantom bonds on my wrists. I woke with a pillow shoved between my legs and my own raw scent in the air.

How could I move on when the past held me so firmly in its grip?

But I was so tired. Maybe it was time, time to accept the medication and numb myself into forgetting.

Forgetting Sherlock Holmes.

I wept, and not for the first time, out of futile frustration. The full weight of my sorrows fell upon me.

I wasn’t unlucky. I was _cursed_.

Cursed to have stopped an Afghan bullet with my body.

Cursed to have stepped into the path of an oncoming car.

Cursed to have been placed in a room with an enthralled madwoman.

Cursed to have stolen a vampire’s blood.

Cursed to have stolen a vampire’s heart.

_Knock, knock._

I sniffed and wiped my nose with the sleeve of my hospital gown. It was such an innate human reflex, I thought abstractly, to invite someone in when they knock. You never question who’s on the other side of the door; you just say,

“Come in.”

The door opened.

A breath caught in my throat. My pulse jumped. I felt a twinge, a very familiar soreness, that filled me with both fear and longing...

“Thank you for the invitation. Hospital protocol, don’t you know? And barging in is just…”

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you're still in the mood for Halloween stories, my two others are [Dregs](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5009677) and [It's the Great Pumpkin, Sherlock Holmes!](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5039086/chapters/11585029) Last year's are [Home Visit](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2485925) and [Pumpkin Latte](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2521934).
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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